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After what has felt like a decade of stalled building that has primarily been the result of my lax attention to the details, I am very happy to finally roll out my Fitter-A. It is my second build of the Modelsvit kit which, without doubt, is the best Su-7 kit out there in this scale. I built her as a partner to my earlier MiG-21FL TACDE build, intending originally to run the two side-by-side in the WIP section. That didn’t happen for many reasons. She is built and depicted as ‘B896’ when she was used by the TACDE for tactics training as well as for operational missions during the Indo-Pakistan skirmishes during that latter part of the 20th Century. She was painted in the earlier two greys, green and brown colours rather than the later overall Medium Sea Grey with green and brown areas. I had a number of threads going about colours and eventually, with the help of @Linescriber and @Stilwell I settled on this configuration. Credit: @Stilwell During their service these aircraft performed numerous low-level missions with MiG-21FL top cover, utilising a variety of weapons configurations. While many used small bombs and rocket pods I opted for bombs. In this case they are Russian FAB-250-M54 and FAB-500-M62. In all cases they had tanks too to mitigate fuel starvation on long sorties. To me they are the Thud of the Indian Air Force although they were “affectionately” known as “The Whale”. In Indian service these were “dirty girls” and seemed to attract all manner of oil stains, scratches, scars and dirt. The wing root cannons also made their mark as can be seen in this photo of the last few in service at Hindon AFS, to the East of Delhi. I have therefore used my full weather armoury on this model 😉 Credit: @Stilwell The build thread is here: So, what did I do/use (beyond OOB)?: 1. Kit – Modelsvit Su-7BMK “Fitter-A” 1/72 (72002) 2. A Pavla resin cockpit (72113), seat, intake (QB 73403) and nosewheel housing 3. Pitots and cannons from Master (AM-72-103) 4. Bombs from Res-Kit FAB-250M-54 (RS72-0094) and FAB-500-M62 (RS72-0134). I had to change the outer wing pylon as the kit one is not correct in shape. 5. Wing tanks from Scale Resin (7203) 6. Wheels from Armoury (ARAW72008) 7. Resin scoops from Quickboost (QB72423) 8. Drilled out other scoops 9. Removed the canopy mirror/periscope. 10. Left off the IFF aerials 11. Added the small sensor to the port side of the canopy. Made from Plastruct rod. 12. Decals – unit badge and serial drawn superbly by Giorgio @Giorgio N and printed by Arctic Decals. The roundels and flags are from my drawings that were also printed by Arctic Decals. The stencils etc are from a spare MiG-21 sheet as the Modelsvit ones took an aversion to water! Even those that stayed in one piece persistently silvered. The cannon flash plates are cut from Xtradecal silver decal sheet. 13. The canopy was cut and set open. It was modified by adding the flange from plastic card along each side that fits in to the corresponding slots, which I also cut out. I also set the tailplanes on brass rod pivots. 14. Paints – primarily Colourcoats Dark Sea Grey (ACRN03), Medium Sea Grey (ACRN04), Dark Green (ACRN09), Terre D’ombre Nat. (ACF03) and Vert (ACF02). The cockpit etc was painted with Humbrol 64. She had a final varnish with Humbrol SatinCote. All enamels. Paint mask from Eduard (CX543). However, note the mask and corresponding moulding is not accurate. The side frames should be deeper. I used two sets of masks to deepen these. 15. Weathering – Flory Dark Dirt wash, Tamiya Weathering Powders, Prismacolor silver pencil Martin

With the MiG now 2/3 complete I need to start the Sukhoi. I am starting this thread to keep the latter separate from the MiG. You can see the Su-7 progress, such as it was, up to the posts on 17th September 2020 here: From this point on I will keep the two independent. I will probably restart the Sukhoi next week. Martin @billn53 @Terry1954 @Gondor44 @Wez @Courageous @Giorgio N

Having started a WIP I'd like to model this machine but - and I really should know! - I cant recal the unit. Any ideas? Thanks in advance. Martin